Have a warrior alt, thinking of leveling as prot.

[shoju]

I'm going to level him from 65 to 80 as prot. Mainly so I can learn about warrior tanking, and get over the 'WTF are all these buttons for?' that I have when I look at warrior tanks.

I have shoulders, and I'm going to get the plate heirloom Chest. I was thinking about getting an heirloom weapon, but I wasn't sure what I should get.

There is:

A fast dagger with stam
A sword with stam
A mace with stam + agi

I know that it's leveling and what not, but I wasn't sure if using a slow weapon as a warrior tank would matter at all.

[Mavfin]

I'm going to level him from 65 to 80 as prot. Mainly so I can learn about warrior tanking, and get over the 'WTF are all these buttons for?' that I have when I look at warrior tanks.

I have shoulders, and I'm going to get the plate heirloom Chest. I was thinking about getting an heirloom weapon, but I wasn't sure what I should get.

There is:

A fast dagger with stam
A sword with stam
A mace with stam + agi

I know that it's leveling and what not, but I wasn't sure if using a slow weapon as a warrior tank would matter at all.

With the dev buff, one of the swords would be best. Slow weaps give bigger devastates. Stack strength. I leveled as prot, but I wore all the str/crit gear I could find for normal questing. I put on my tank gear for instances and soloing elites. For multiple mobs leveling, glyphed cleave is nice, and you'll love what you can do to casters.

[LavCat]

I'm going to level him from 65 to 80 as prot. Mainly so I can learn about warrior tanking, and get over the 'WTF are all these buttons for?' that I have when I look at warrior tanks.

I have shoulders, and I'm going to get the plate heirloom Chest. I was thinking about getting an heirloom weapon, but I wasn't sure what I should get.

There is:

A fast dagger with stam
A sword with stam
A mace with stam + agi

I know that it's leveling and what not, but I wasn't sure if using a slow weapon as a warrior tank would matter at all.

It used to be you wanted the fastest weapon you could find for tanking. I leveled my warrior as protection the whole way to 80, but other than one instance in WotLK and a couple of instances in BC she hasn't tanked anything since classic. It may well be that slower weapons are in favor now. I hoped having a tank would make it easier to get groups, but I gave up trying. I rather miss the thrill of tanking Ragnaros. And it was fun tanking instances with Bolty healing, but that was over five years ago.

[Taelas]

You'll not want the dagger. Daggers get less out of Attack Power than slower weapons do, as their speed is normalized at 1.7 for instant attacks while 1-handed swords, maces and axes are normalized at 2.4 (regardless of their actual speed). In other words, if you have a dagger and a sword with the exact same stats and you use them for Devastate, the sword will hit harder. Damage from attack power is calculated by dividing the AP with 14 and multiplying by the weapon's speed. For instant attacks, weapon speed is normalized.

Daggers can be okay choices for a tank, but not compared to weapons in their own itemlevel range.

That being said, tanking and soloing as Protection are somewhat different. Not by a great amount, as you're using the same abilities, but there's still a difference. While tanking, you want a fast weapon to maximize your Heroic Strikes, as that gives more damage than the difference in damage from Devastate would be with a slower weapon. While soloing, you won't have enough rage to do that, so you'll want a slow weapon to maximize Devastates.

Oh, and I'd choose the Venerable Mass of McGowan. It has less crit, but more AP and stamina, and you'll get dodge from the agility on it.

[Sir_Die_alot]

That being said, tanking and soloing as Protection are somewhat different. Not by a great amount, as you're using the same abilities, but there's still a difference. While tanking, you want a fast weapon to maximize your Heroic Strikes, as that gives more damage than the difference in damage from Devastate would be with a slower weapon. While soloing, you won't have enough rage to do that, so you'll want a slow weapon to maximize Devastates.

I'm not sure when it happened or if it's just always been like this and the trend is changing but using a slow 1 hander for tanking seems to be taking off. I know the MT in my guild switched to a slow dps 1 hander and I can go full out 10kish dps with my fury warrior and not even get 40% of his threat. He also has a top 10 prot dps ranking in nearly every fight in 10 and 25 man ICC.

[Shamago]

I'm not sure when it happened or if it's just always been like this and the trend is changing but using a slow 1 hander for tanking seems to be taking off. I know the MT in my guild switched to a slow dps 1 hander and I can go full out 10kish dps with my fury warrior and not even get 40% of his threat. He also has a top 10 prot dps ranking in nearly every fight in 10 and 25 man ICC.

Slow weapons also would cause less parry-haste.

[shoju]

I'm not sure when it happened or if it's just always been like this and the trend is changing but using a slow 1 hander for tanking seems to be taking off. I know the MT in my guild switched to a slow dps 1 hander and I can go full out 10kish dps with my fury warrior and not even get 40% of his threat. He also has a top 10 prot dps ranking in nearly every fight in 10 and 25 man ICC.

I prefer to tank with a slow DPS weapon on my paladin. Hammer of the righteous hits that much harder, and my threat rocks.

[Taelas]

Slow weapons also would cause less parry-haste.

While true, it is nearly negligible. On any boss where parry-haste becomes a problem, they simply disable the mechanic. There's really no need to worry about it any longer.

It's entirely possible that with the latest upgrades to Devastate, slow 1-handers are becoming the norm -- I haven't looked at the latest theorycraft on the subject.

Shoju, I'm pretty certain HotR is normalized on an additional level than normal. It doesn't matter whether a paladin's weapon is fast or slow.

[shoju]

Shoju, I'm pretty certain HotR is normalized on an additional level than normal. It doesn't matter whether a paladin's weapon is fast or slow.

Hammer of the Righteous slightly Favors slow weapons as does Seal of Command, and Seal of vengeance.

Seal of Command does 38% weapon damage. Seal of Vengeance has a Dot, and once stacked deals 33% weapon damage. Both of these are working off the top end damage of the weapon's damage range.

This is part of the reason why 25man paladins hung onto Broken Promise for so long.

[Ziig]

I prefer to tank with a slow DPS weapon on my paladin. Hammer of the righteous hits that much harder, and my threat rocks.

Along those lines...what do you think of Gutbuster?

Drops everytime we kill Festergut, we have to force it on people now:).

[Kevin]

Along those lines...what do you think of Gutbuster?

Drops everytime we kill Festergut, we have to force it on people now:).

Girly uses it when I go prot spec from time to time. I love it when I tank as ret spec. :) Yes I got the first one that dropped because no one else had any use for it.

[shoju]

Sunetra tanks with This more often than anything else.


If I had the option, I would switch to gutbuster for the hit.